Keno is probably the simplest game to play. All have to do is choose a number of spots to bet on, then sit back and wait for the balls to be drawn. The more you match, the more you win! A lucky Keno player from Kansas found just how easy it is to win on Keno recently.

Richard Bronson from Salina had a set routine which saw him play Keno before lunch then later on during the day as well. He said that he prefers playing the 8 spot Keno ticket.

As usual, he went about his daily routine and playing Keno along the way, however, one day he was blissfully unaware that he had won.

He usually watches the live draw taking place when in a local bar, however, on the day in question he missed the numbers being drawn and as players can do he wandered over to the keno terminal to check whether his numbers had come up.

When he was immediately told that he would have to redeem his winnings in Topeka, he knew that it was an indication that he must have won a pretty nifty amount.

He asked his daughter to get in touch with the Kansas Lottery office on his behalf and to double check the amount that he had won. She did so and confirmed that he had, in fact, won $20,000.

The lucky Keno winner told lottery officials when asked what he plans to do with his prize that he has absolutely no idea. He continued saying that he would more than likely simply put it in the bank until he’s thought about it properly.

Winning on Keno online can happen to anyone who takes a chance on this super exciting game.

Keno online at PlayUKLottery

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How Keno started

Keno was created in Asia and many historians believe that it was originally created by a man named Cheung Leung over a thousand years ago. Like most games of chance back then, it too was created to raise money. According to historical evidence, funds raised from keno played an instrumental role in financing the construction of the Great Wall of China.

The original Keno game

The original Keno game consisted of 120 Chinese characters that were part of an ancient poem. Players were required to pick 10 Chinese characters out of a total of 120.

Keno goes abroad

In the 1800s the Keno game made its way to the US via Chinese immigrants who arrived in the US to work on the railways and mines. The Chinese loved playing Keno but they also realised that in order to gain a wider appeal they needed to change the Chinese characters to numbers. The story begins in Butte, Montana and unfolds as follows:

Before World War 1 there was a boom in mining in Butte. Shifts were just about non-stop.

It’s in these towns that it comes as no surprise that there were quite a few high rollers that were playing Keno as their favourite pastime.

According to Osmand Tiffany who visited these towns in 1844, "boys learned gambling as soon as they could talk, and pursued it through life."

One of the most popular games of chance in Butte's Chinese gambling parlours was Fan Tan.

At the time there was also a Chinese lottery called Pok Kop Piu (the White Pigeon Ticket). The lottery was based on the first eighty characters of a book called the Ts'in Tsz' Man, or Thousand Character Classic.

The game worked with players betting on the number of beans that would remain in a jar. A game manager was put in charge.

The manager would roll eighty pieces of paper, each marked with a separate character and place them in a pan.

He then mixed them and placed 20 of the pieces from the pan into a china bowl. The process was repeated until all four bowls each contained 20 characters.

The manager would then pick a random player from the crowd who would choose one of the four bowls.

The manager then took the selected bowl and carefully unrolled the 20 winning characters and pasted them on the board for all to see.

If a player bet on 10 characters, they had to have at least five matching characters to win. Those who guessed at least five winning characters received a prize of as much as $3,000 depending on their wager.

Nevada

In 1927, the Chinese approached Pete Naughton, who at that time was the owner of the Crown Cigar Store. Together they began a lottery operation. Unfortunately, a tong war developed and resulted in the operation being shut down.

Naughton’s stepsons, Joseph and Francis Lyden took over the operation.

Racehorse Keno

Francis Lyden took the game Reno, Navada and changed the Chinese characters on the lottery sheets to numbers, reducing the total numbers to 80, and adding racehorse names to the numbers to make it “legal” in Nevada. This was done due to the fact that gambling was still banned but horseracing was legal.

In Las Vegas, Lyden came up with drawings that were held every 15 minutes instead of one a day. By the mid-1950s modern Keno was established. Lyden called it “Racehorse Keno.”

Keno

The United States Congress passed a law taxing off-track betting on horse races in 1951. Due to the fact that the game was called “Racehorse Keno,” Lynden quickly shortened it to Keno as it might be construed as off-track betting.

Keno is designed for entertainment and offers very high payoffs for a small wager.

Keno is casino’s take place approximately five or six games an hour, which is a very leisurely pace compared to other games found in the casino. While some Keno enthusiasts sit in the keno lounge and watch the numbers light up on the Keno board, many players like to play Keno while they are dining.

There’s no denying the fact that Keno is a game of chance, however, the game does have a little bit of strategy.

Numbers come and go; sometimes numbers repeat themselves for no good reason. Other times specific numbers will not show up for long periods of time.

The best Keno advice is not to “fall in love” with any specific number. Each game should be treated as a new and separate event from your last one.

With so many Keno enthusiasts religiously sticking to their favourite single number or two numbers representing birthdays or numbers that hold special meaning, all we can say is they are not necessarily good selections.

Playing Keno is awesome

Obviously, Cheung Leung’s experiment was successful, as his game is still enjoyed by millions of people around the globe. For the amount wagered, it offers some big payoffs!

Keno is one of the most popular instant win games on PlayUKLottery.com. Winning up to €1,000,000 in 3 minutes is only the beginning, here are a few other reasons it’s a crowd-favourite:

No long wait to win: You can play 480 times a day so no need to wait for draw days with this game!

There are different options: whether you want to try and match 9, 10, 11 or 12 numbers, you can pick how to challenge yourself.

Play whenever, wherever: because Keno is an instant win game, you can play this game while stuck in traffic, in between meetings and while you wait for your coffee.